This invention relates to quilting machines, and more particularly to a modular system for feeding materials into the quilting machines.
Quilting machines are well known in the art and are used for making a variety of quilted products such as furniture coverings, mattress panels, and other quilted covers. One such quilting machine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,130 to Gribetz et al. and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. These quilting machines are utilized to sew together one or more layers of fill material between a fabric covering and a backing material whereby various stitch lines are created to form functional and decorative patterns in the finished product. Due to market demands for quilted products in a variety of colors and patterns, as well as in a range of quality and price, a single quilting machine is generally utilized to produce a wide variety of different quilted products. Accordingly, manufacturers must frequently change the cover and fill materials supplied to the quilting machine during production, often as much as several times a day.
The materials used in quilting machines fall into two general categories: cover materials and fill materials. Cover materials include the top layer fabric and the bottom layer backing. The fabric material may be provided in any of a variety of fabric textures, knits, colors, patterns, weights and weaves. Conventional quilting machines are supplied with fabric and backing materials on rolls mounted to the quilting machine. Fill materials, generally including foam materials and/or fiber materials, are also provided in rolls and are supplied at specific precut thicknesses for producing the range of quilted products. Rolls of fill material are generally placed on racks in front of the quilting machine and are fed into the quilting machine, along with the cover and backing materials, by feed rollers which pull the materials from the rolls. Multiple filler rolls, with various properties and thicknesses, may be combined to form a multi-layer xe2x80x9csandwichxe2x80x9d of filler material between the cover materials.
To accommodate different products, a wide range of cover and filler materials must be stocked and available for use whenever a different final product is desired. For example, one production run might require a sandwich of a 2 inch layer of foam material and a 1 inch layer of fiber material between a beige cover material and white backing material. The next production run might require the foam material layer to be 1 inch thick and the fiber material layer to be 1.5 inch thick. The next production run might require that the beige cover material be changed to include a green floral pattern.
When changeover to produce a different quilted product is necessary during operation, a machine operator must stop the quilting machine, cut the current fabric and/or fill material rolls, remove the current roll or rolls, replace the rolls with the new desired fabric or fill rolls, and attach the new materials to the previous materials being fed into the quilting machine. These operations are highly labor intensive, requiring a significant amount of machine down time and physical exertion by an operator.
Another problem associated with conventional quilting machines is an undesirable stretching of material as they are fed into the quilting machine. This stretching is caused by tension generated as the infed materials are pulled from their respective rolls by the feed rollers on the quilting machine.
There is thus a need for a system for supplying materials to an automated quilting machine which provides a substantially continuous feed of fill and cover materials into the quilting machine and which reduces the time consuming and labor intensive process of changing over fill and cover material rolls to produce different quilted products during operation. There is also a need for a flexible, modular material supply system for automated quilting machines which is capable of accommodating infed materials in various forms for input to the quilting machine and which can provide fill and cover materials to the quilting machine in a manner that eliminates undesirable stretching of the materials.
The present invention provides a flexible, modular material supply system for an automated quilting machine which is capable of accommodating infed materials in various forms and which significantly reduces the time and effort needed to changeover component materials to produce various quilted products. To this end, the material supply system includes a variety of fill material supply devices which receive and dispense fill material in various forms. The fill material supply system includes one or more of the following devices: (a) a roll cradle for dispensing fill material from a roll; (b) a log peeler for receiving a solid foam log and dispensing foam fill material cut to a desired thickness; (c) a fan-folded fill device which dispenses a continuous web of fill material that has been folded with alternating folds into a cart or bale form; and (d) a fiber lay-down device which deposits fiber fill material directly onto an infed web of material at a desired thickness. Selection of infed fill materials from one or more of the above devices may be based, for example, on the desired quality and/or thickness of the final quilted product, or based on suitability for a given production run.
The material supply system of the present invention further includes an automated tick magazine, a backing material supply device, a laminator, and optionally a digital printer. The tick magazine stages, feeds, cuts, splices, and rewinds various fabric cover materials which are stored in a carousel-type holder. The backing supply device dispenses backing material in roll form. The laminator is located downstream of the fill supply devices, the tick magazine, and the backing supply device and selectively receives one or more fill materials, a cover material, and a backing material and channels them into a continuous layered workpiece. A digital printer may be located downstream from the laminator and receives the continuous layered workpiece to selectively print a variety of patterns and colors onto the fabric cover material, thereby reducing the quantity of fabric cover materials which must be stored in the tick magazine. Alternatively, a digital printer may be located adjacent the tick magazine upstream of the laminator to print onto the cover material prior feeding it to the laminator.
In one aspect of the invention, the laminator is equipped with a glue station which can be actuated to selectively bond components of the layered workpiece as desired. In a further aspect of the invention, the laminator includes cutting and splicing devices for selectively cutting out or splicing in the various component materials to produce a variety of layered workpieces. In still a further aspect of the invention, the laminator is equipped with a panel cutting device and a panel stacker for cutting individual panels of the layered workpiece and stacking them for presentation to the quilting machine.
In another aspect of the invention, the roll cradle includes powered rollers or a powered belt drive for dispensing fill material from a roll. The roll cradle may be further equipped with a sensor and a controller coupled to a belt drive motor for detecting tension in the dispensed fill material and adjusting the motor to eliminate the tension. In still another aspect of the invention, the roll cradle is equipped with a device which automatically cuts and splices the fill material.
Thus, the present invention provides an improved material supply system for automated quilting machines that reduces the substantial down time associated with changing over fill and cover materials being fed to the quilting machine, and further provides fill and cover materials to an automated quilting machine in a manner that eliminates undesirable stretching of fill materials.